Why the Rushdies are rushing to divorce

By PAUL SCOTT

Last updated at 00:59 07 July 2007

Amid the chatter of New York's hand-wringing elite at a charity gala in aid of indigenous Venezuelan tribespeople, Salman Rushdie looked the picture of boredom. With his trademark heavy eyelids (the result of a rare inherited condition called ptosis) he appeared to be fighting a desperate and losing battle to stay awake.

But as those close to him will attest, few have such finely-tuned antennae for the presence of a beautiful woman than the newly-knighted author. So when the shapely figure of a sultry South American girl came into view, Sir Salman sprang to life.

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"He was talking idly to a group of people and suddenly he was gone," said a fellow guest at the party two months ago at Manhattan's trendy Soho Grand Hotel.

"I've never seen anyone move so quickly. The people he was with were left standing open-mouthed.

"Meanwhile, Salman was already giving this vision of a girl, who must have been no more than 22, his full-on charm treatment.

"A few minutes later I saw him writing something down. It might have been his autograph, but it could just have easily been her number."

Could it be that the man of letters - who announced this week that his stunning and much younger fourth wife has demanded a divorce after just three years - is already on the look-out for a replacement?

Rushdie was accompanied to that party by his soon-to-be ex, actress and television presenter Padma Lakshmi. This was the last time the mismatched couple (she is 24 years his junior and stands a full seven inches taller in her heels than the 5ft 7in Rushdie) were seen together in public.

Rushdie - whose appearance at 60 is more akin to an inhabitant of Middle Earth than a classic romantic lead from Central Casting - has never been short of the attention of beautiful women.

Scouting for talent while in the company of your wife is a new development, even for someone so famed for his roving eye. But then the Indian-born, Rugby School-educated writer is more used to doing the dumping that being dumped himself.

He had been married to third wife Elizabeth West a mere two years when he kicked her into touch after meeting former Vogue model Miss Lakshmi at a party in New York in 1999. Miss West later cited his adultery in their divorce case.

This week, however, Rushdie, who was controversially knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours two weeks ago, admitted that the statuesque Padma had called time on the marriage as friends claim he desperately tried to persuade her to give the relationship another go.

It seems the fiercely ambitious 36-year-old has moved on from her ageing husband. Once happy to let his fame open doors for her, she is now the star of her own show on American television.

Having outstripped his celebrity status in the U.S., she too has been spotted playing the field. Last week, she was the subject of gossip column stories in the Big Apple. It was said that she enjoyed a flirtatious evening with an unnamed man at a party at New York's Gramercy Park Hotel.

Meanwhile, sources on cable channel Bravo told the Mail this week of rumours on the set of reality show Top Chef - fronted by Padma - about her friendship with millionaire Tom Colicchio who is a judge on the cooking competition.

Given her obvious on-screen chemistry with the married Colicchio, it is hardly surprising that the pair are being talked about.

As early as last August, as Rushdie was complaining about how little he got to see her, Padma was on a U.S. chat show sending birthday wishes to 44-year-old Colicchio, the bald former chef at New York's celebrated Gramercy Tavern.

Despite the rumours, Padma denies they are anything more than good friends. But it is undeniable that she has finally tired of Rushdie.

Padma, who was born in Madras but raised by her single mother in New York and Los Angeles, married Rushdie in a lavish, star-studded Hindu ceremony in the Oxford-educated author's adopted home of Manhattan in 2004.

It is unlikely that she will dispense with her newly acquired title as easily as she has her husband.

She is expected to style herself as Padma, Lady Rushdie (though etiquette states that, as the ex-wife of a knight of the realm, she should be known simply as Lady Rushdie).

All of which is incredibly grand for the daughter of a nurse (and who, incidentally, steadfastly refused to take her husband's name while they were married).

In fact, their marriage has been hanging together by a thread for more than a year.

Last year Booker Prize-winning Rushdie admitted they had spent barely three weeks together in the past four months.

Padma had been pursuing her acting and TV presenting career in Hollywood; he was flitting between their homes in Manhattan and London's Notting Hill. At the same time he admitted his wife found him too intense and uptight.

Meanwhile, in an unguarded moment she bemoaned his tightfistedness, despite his reported £8 million fortune. In a previously unreported swipe during an interview, she said of her plans to launch her own film production company: "I know Salman won't help me in the screenwriting department because he'll make me pay him for his contribution.

"No matter how big a budget I can come up with, there's no way I can afford him. He's very frustrating that way."

Finally, in March, their marital problems were made public when fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg, who was a guest at their 2004 wedding, was overheard saying: "I can't believe she's leaving him."

Even before their recent troubles, there had long been rumours of fissures in the relationship. Four years ago the couple went to the trouble of issuing a statement denying that she found him "boring" and that he thought she wasn't "intellectually stimulating enough".

For Rushdie, his relationship with the leggy Miss Lakshmi was a case of opposites attracting. He was the highly intelligent, but insufferably self-important, novelist; she the former bikini-wearing hostess on an Italian game show who posed topless on the cover of her own diet cookbook and who habitually addresses both men and women in conversation as "dude".

Friends say they could not even agree on music, with Padma, who hates her husband's favourite singer, Bob Dylan, preferring hip hop. Often the couple would lock themselves in different rooms of their beautiful Manhattan apartment listening alone to their own CDs.

Another thorny issue, say those close to them, has been the subject of children. Rushdie, it is said, had been desperately trying to start a family. (He already has a son Zafar, 27, from his first marriage to the late Clarissa Luard; and an eight-year-old son, Milan, by Elizabeth West.)

But the driven Padma has not been keen to oblige him with another child because her career has suddenly ignited with her high-profile presenting role and an appearance last year in ITV1's mini-series Sharpe's Challenge opposite Sean Bean.

Her success has, it seems, only served to inflame the beauty's already high-handed ways. While filming with Bean she insisted that a crew member escort her from her trailer holding a parasol to protect her delicate skin from the sun.

Meanwhile, even after meeting Padma, Rushdie has never fully given up his louche lifestyle. He has become a devoted party animal since the Iranian government lifted the fatwa on him in 1998.

(He had lived under the threat of fatwa for nine years during which he had to move house 30 times and required a round-the-clock police protection team at a cost to the taxpayer of £10 million.)

He moved to New York in 2000 to be with Padma. But marriage to her did not stop him squiring a host of gorgeous women to glittering parties on both sides of the Atlantic.

On his stag night, thrown by his friend, the author Kathy Lette - at which Rushdie was the only male guest - Nigella Lawson and Dannii Minogue were invited to send him off in style. The evening is said to have ended with a bout of passionate kissing during a game of spin the bottle.

In recent times he has also escorted his old flame Marie Helvin and 30-year-old television presenter June Sarpong.

Earlier this year he was spotted kissing beautiful 28-year-old Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson over dinner at Knightsbridge restaurant Mr Chow.

Friends have noticed that Rushdie, who reluctantly became clean-shaven after his wife complained his beard irritated her skin, has given up shaving again.

And Padma is spending more and more time in LA, leading to those rumours about her friendships with other men, who are said to include a mystery billionaire.

No wonder Sir Salman is reported to be so unhappy. Those who know the ego-driven author say he has also become annoyed that, increasingly, it was his wife who was recognised by fans in New York, while he was ignored.

While her star seems to be in the ascendant, Rushdie, whose 1981 novel Midnight's Children was celebrated as a classic, has seen his career slide.

His four most recent novels have scored disappointing sales, and his last book, 2005's Shalimar The Clown had scathing reviews.

If that were not enough, the announcement of his knighthood renewed calls from extremists that the fatwa should be reinstated.

In Pakistan, a government minister said the move could justify suicide bombings. And a Pakistani trade union pledged an £80,000 reward to anyone who beheaded him, to add to the £75,000 bounty promised by radical Iranian groups.

Hardly welcome news for Rushdie, coinciding as it does with his wife's demands for a divorce.

But perhaps he will find comfort in one aspect of his life: if his recent behaviour is anything to go by, the libidinous Sir Salman is already lining up his latest piece of arm candy.